Part of the Bermuda Crew

Our big family vacation this year was a few years in the making. Wendy’s hubby Tim has family in Australia, and as such they plan a trip to see his family every few years. I can’t say exactly when they last visited, but it was certainly a few years ago so Jenn started making plans to tag along on their next foray across the Pacific. Ultimately it was decided that spring 2018 (fall in Australia) was the right time! It was only after we had started making the official itinerary for the trip that it was discovered that the 2018 Commonwealth Games were going to be relatively close to Bribie Island, where we were staying.

Jenn kept an eye on the Games’ website for ticket releases to see what we could get. The main priority was to get (surprise!) triathlon tickets of course, which she was successful in doing. Ryley was interested in seeing some gymnastics, too, so Jenn scored tickets for the two of them as Josh and I were less than interested in that particular event!

So we took a few days out of our big Australia vacation to drive the 3 or so hours down the coast one evening from Bribie to the home of this year’s games, Gold Coast. We rented a decent little AirBNB within walking distance to the triathlon event area, hoping to avoid any traffic and parking issues before the events, which worked out pretty well. Though it didn’t really seem that busy; we heard that many people left town and many businesses close to the event areas shut their doors during the games to avoid the crowds and inconvenience of the many road closures. That worked out for us, and as a result it was much less stressful!

Rowdy Flora fans

We were up early the day of the triathlons, the women’s race was at 9:30am and the men’s later on in the early afternoon. Gates to the secured event area were due to open at 8:30am and don’t you know we were near the front of the line! Us and several other triathlon fans from Bermuda…! The main attraction for us was of course Flora Duffy, Bermuda’s own superstar athlete, who in recent years has been crowned world champion several times in triathlon as well as Xterra (basically off-road triathlon). She was looking to add ‘Commonwealth Games gold medallist’ to her resume and we were happy to be there to support her! Her parents were also there and waiting in line to get in with us, we know them through Jenn’s affiliations with triathlon in Bermuda (Jenn and Maria often ride bikes together), it was nice to see and chat with them as well while we somewhat patiently waited to be granted entry. We found the official mascot of the Games, Borobi, shortly after arriving at the triathlon course and happily got a photo with him to start the day!

As it turned out, the race went to plan for Flora, winning her Gold Medal in front of Jessica Learmonth of England in second and Canada’s own awesome triathlete Joanna Brown in third. Erica Hawley, a young Bermudian triathlete, was also in the race and did awesome with a 16th place finish. It was exciting to see them zip around the course, as we didn’t get tickets to the grandstand for the race we were free to roam around to various points on the track (though we kept close to the finish), but I enjoyed the freedom to get a few pictures from different vantage points (it wasn’t too busy so wasn’t fighting crowds too often!). After the women’s race we were allowed to sneak into the grandstand to meet up with Flora and Erica’s parents and the other Bermuda fans who were hanging around for the medal presentations.

The weather, which was very nice for the women’s race, took a nasty turn before the men’s race and nearly soaked our lunch! Luckily we had rain jackets along and the rain subsided part way through the men’s race.

Overall we had a great day as it was a very well organized event; things ticked along on time and the kids were kept happy between races and after the day’s events were done at the playground set up nearby.

Yay Flora! And Joanna!

No rest for the wicked, however, as after we left and had dinner nearby Jenn and Ryley had to get to their gymnastics event, a short drive up the road from where we were staying. Turned out that the gymnastics was the men’s team event, so they got to see all the disciplines, all at once! Josh and I dropped them off and picked them up, we went back to the AirBNB to chill and watch the games on TV while the girls were out. When we picked them up again it sounded like they had a fun time, a good end to a busy day on our feet.

We were set to leave again the next day to return to Bribie, but took a little time to explore Gold Coast before we left. We started with breakfast with Adsy, a triathlete / coach who lives in Gold Coast whom we met when he came to Bermuda last year to put on a triathlon camp. After our breakfast visit we went out to find parts of the Borobi Fan Trail, which was basically a series of statues of Borobi undertaking various athletic disciplines situated along a walking / biking route along the shoreline in the city. We managed to find three of these statues, it was a good excuse to get us out to do a little bit of sightseeing along the beach and in the city before leaving!

We didn’t find the souvenirs we wanted while in Gold Coast, so in the car on the way to Bribie (got to love technology!), Jenn was able to order us a bunch of sweet swag from the games to be delivered to us in Bribie before we left for home (happy to report that it made it!).

As I mentioned in the recap of our Australia vacation, this was a great addition to our trip, we all had a blast!